


That Johnny Cash Vibe

by yonderdarling



Series: The Doctor and the Doctor walk into a bar... [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Gen, M/M, Slow Dancing, Wild West
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7979932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonderdarling/pseuds/yonderdarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is a surprise, stranger," Esther said, after a few minutes. "Genuinely wasn't expecting to see you here."<br/>"I'm like a bad penny, me," the Doctor said, and grinned.<br/>"You certainly seem in a better state than last time I saw you," said Esther. "That said, you are some kind of fancy time traveller. For all I know, that was a hundred years ago."<br/>"Couple decades, at most," said the Doctor. "And you, Miss Mists? Now, that's a tongue twister."<br/>"Lisp-inducing torture," said Esther. "You can call me just Esther. Or Miss. Missy, even."</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Johnny Cash Vibe

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kiara and Morgan for looking this over for me. Same continuity as Nine Pounds of Trouble, and you should probably give that a once-over before reading this one.  
> Play some Johnny Cash in the background for that extra je nais sais quoi, yo.

He'd been aiming for Planet Eighteen[Apple]50, and hit the Southern United States in 1887, so naturally the Doctor, Jack and Rose had gotten mixed up in chasing a lost alien across the wild frontiers. After the Morduchan hatchling had been safely returned to space, the trio happened to come across a small town - one telegraph office, one saloon, several houses, a general store. It was the saloon that piqued their interest.

"Fancy a drink, pardners?" Rose had joked, and they'd all laughed, headed towards the well-made, weather-beaten building in the centre of town.

Jack and Rose were drinking on the porch outside the saloon, laughing away, watching some of the local children play a complicated skipping and jumping game in the dusty street.

"What's upstairs?" Rose had asked.

"The sort of - more lounge type rooms," the Doctor said.

"I know them well," Jack had quipped, a cocky tilt to his head. "Well, in theory. I'm sure they're the same the universe over, when all is said and done."

Rose had giggled, done that thing with her tongue; the Doctor had simply shaken his head good-naturedly.

"Perhaps later," said Rose, with that lilt to her voice that she got when something like dancing came up in conversation. Then, 21st-century human to the end, her eyes had darted from the Doctor to Jack, thoughts coming into her mind that had probably never occurred to her in her nineteen years of existence.

Nineteen. Rose was _nineteen_.

"I'm going to check what's happening inside," said the Doctor. "Need a minute."

"Come play with us!" one of the children called from the street. Rose quickly finished her drink, dragged Jack down onto the dusty strip of road.

"What's this about then?"

The Doctor pushed through the swinging doors, sighed with relief at the marginally cooler, shadier interior. The leather-and-jumper look worked for him this time, but it arguably worked a little too well this close to the equator.

The sun would be down soon, near enough, and then they could walk back to the TARDIS. The sun had been beating down on the western plains for hours - it was beautiful sure, to see an azure sky and the last remnants of North American wilderness, but it didn't get half hot.

The Doctor strode over to the dark-panelled bar and got himself a ginger beer, glanced around. It was so cold and so tangy it almost stung his mouth. It was a three-room saloon - the bar, the cards room and the dance area. He peered into dance area, where a band was lazily playing through some old cowboy tunes. A faint haze of pipe-smoke hung in the air. A few couples were dancing - some appeared to be married, others were clearly visiting gentlemen dancing with the women who lived upstairs.

Each to their own. The Doctor took a moment, sipping his drink. The floor creaked under his feet.

"It looks rubbish, I say," said a male voice. "The panels are all wrong."

"Big talk for someone whose circuits are broken," a woman replied. "You're not even in that era long enough to justify keeping the disguise."

"I _like it_." The man sounded decidedly peeved.

"Then don't bag out my own preferences. Grumpypants."

"Oh, shush."

" _You_ shush," said the woman, a hint of amusement in her voice.

"I was shushed, you unshushed the situation."

The Doctor chuckled to himself as he moved around the edge of the room, looking at all the couples swaying, canoodling. He had little doubt Jack would have visited this room. He rounded back to the bar, with half a mind to go have a laugh at Jack and Rose playing with the kids in the street, when a pair of pale eyes caught his notice. The Doctor squinted into the card room through the haze of pipe smoke, not quite sure what he was looking for until he saw it.

Esther Mists winked at him and held up one finger. She was sitting at a table playing with an older man with fluffy grey hair and a black coat. She tapped her nails on the table-top, then smiled at the Doctor.

The song ended. Esther excused herself from the game, crossed through the room and stood in front of the Doctor.

"They're blue," the Doctor said after a moment. "Your eyes."

"I paid for these, fair and square, stranger," said Esther Mists. She held out a hand. "Shall we?"

"I thought it was era-appropriate for the male figure to ask the female one to dance."

"I haven't always been female," said Esther Mists, her teeth still white and sharp.

"Tradition is tradition, for tradition's sake," said the Doctor, bowed.

Took her hand and they assumed a simple waltz position. The music cued up again, a buxom redhead in a frilly dress taking up a new song.

"This is a surprise, stranger," Esther said, after a few minutes. "Genuinely wasn't expecting to see you here."

"I'm like a bad penny, me," the Doctor said, and grinned.

"You certainly seem in a better state than last time I saw you," said Esther. "That said, you are some kind of fancy time traveller. For all I know, that was a hundred years ago."

"Couple decades, at most," said the Doctor. "And you, Miss Mists? Now, that's a tongue twister."

"Lisp-inducing torture," said Esther. "You can call me just Esther. Or Miss. _Missy_ , even."

"You don't look like a Missy. I'd end up calling you Mary on accident," said the Doctor, ignored Esther's strange expression. He twirled her, caught a brief glimpse of her old cards partner by the bar, watching them both, his weathered face impassive. The Doctor clasped Esther's waist again. "So. Esther Mists. Did you ever find your friend?"

"Safe and sound, or close to it," said Esther. "He was in a bit of a pickle and I sorted it, didn't even get a thanks, in the end, at least not right away."

"Near enough is good enough."

"Sorted out your planetary confusion?" Esther asked.

"Nowhere near," said the Doctor, realising that anguish didn't rise up inside him as he spoke. "I suppose - I suppose I'm moving on."

"I'm sure you're close to recovery. It's all up from here on in, stranger."

They swayed in time with the music for a few moments. The redhead crooned. She had a nice voice. The Doctor hoped she was in the saloon by choice, not necessity.

"She's a nice looking bit of a thing," said Esther.

"For a human, you mean."

"We all have our preferences," Esther said. "My old man over there - he's not a fan of humans currently."

"Each to their own," the Doctor said, finding Esther much less intriguing now he had two human friends back in his life. "They grow on you, though. It takes a while. But they really are fantastic beings to have around. Just got to be a bit picky. Selective."

Esther shrugged. It looked odd with her shoulders already up.

"At least Mary Poppins is slightly period-appropriate here," the Doctor said. "You know, across the Atlantic."

"Satellite dishes don't come to this planet until at least the 1960s though," said Esther, with a slow smile. She took in the Doctor's confused expression, pulled at the top of one his ears with two cool fingers.

The Doctor chuckled. They kept dancing. The Doctor caught another glance of Esther's partner.

"So, your old man? Where'd you pick him up?"

"My old man. He picked me up a few days ago."

"Hm. That's a lot of black for the wild west in summer."

"It's an aesthetic thing for him," said Esther. "Loves his blacks."

"It's not polite to leave someone with the room bill after sleeping with them," said the Doctor eventually. "I had to pawn - well, I ended up giving them a Faberge egg."

"And you just happened to have that in your pocket, did you?"

"They're quite deep."

"I'm sure they are. That said. I did pay for the drinks, or didn't you notice?"

The Doctor laughed, and Esther quirked her red lips. "I was a little under the weather to notice that, but I suppose you did."

"How did you - how much do you remember of our little night together?" she asked, voice low.

"The basics," said the Doctor. "Drinks, dancing. You nearly killed me with a dart."

"I would have taken a bit of ear off. You should have take it as a compliment. A favour."

Again, the Doctor chuckled. "And then a bit of - well, we've been calling it _dancing_ , me and my friends."

"Dancing. Yes, and then we danced. With vigour."

"I didn't do anything untoward?"

"Nothing I didn't ask you to do," said Esther. "You were quite upset at first. Warmed up after being submitted to my charms. And a lot of booze."

Esther leant her head on his shoulder as the singer started warbling her way through a different tune. The Doctor peered down at her face. She'd closed her eyes. A few more couples entered the room, probably as the working day was ending. It was getting rather crowded. Taller than most of the people in there, the Doctor looked over at the stage with ease. Chuckled, surprised.

"Your partner's playing guitar," he said. "Huh."

"He digs that Johnny Cash vibe," Esther said quietly, head still on the Doctor's shoulder. "He's not bad. Really good at the fingering."

"He could be better," said the Doctor.

"Oh, no, I can guarantee."

The woman laughed and it took him a moment to realise why. "I'm sure he'd love to hear that from you. Is that your friend, the one you were looking for?" the Doctor asked. "You were quite desperate to find him."

"Oh you know. You can't step on the same river twice."

Well, that made no sense. Esther turned them so she could see the stage. She chuckled, and it sounded eerily familiar; not like Rose's laugh at all. It was creepy.

"He found me actually," she said. "Sought me out."

"Gave him his disc back?"

"Oh, that's a story and a half for another time," Esther continued, pressing her sharp chin into his shoulder, still looking at the stage. "Took a billion-odd years but here we are. You got friends, this time around, stranger?"

"I - I do," said the Doctor, and pulled back so he could grin at her. They rotated carefully. "Two great friends, a few good ones. And one rather shouty mother of a friend."

"Not a fan of mothers," said Esther. "Parents in general."

For one brief, inexplicable second, the Doctor's gaze dropped to the brooch Esther wore on her collar. Then, whatever he had thought of was gone. Esther frowned at something over his shoulder.

"Ey up, is that one of yours? That's a 51st-century styled timepiece, if I ever saw one."

The Doctor turned and saw Jack and Rose standing by the door, looking about. Well. They'd certainly drifted through the crowd. He wanted to stay out of sight of them for a few more minutes. Experienced time travellers - not _agents_ , like Jack had been - were relatively rare, and regardless of their familiarity or friendliness, it was nice to bask in the sense of similar experiences.

"Dying to meet those two, lemme tell you," said Esther dryly.

"Sarcasm?"

"I assume they're humans, from their slack-jawed expressions," she continued. "20th and 51st centuries? You do go far, stranger."

The Doctor couldn't help himself. "21st," he said. "She's from the 21st century."

"Earth, and Earth. I thought you weren't a fan," said Esther. "I suppose I was wrong."

They rotated again. The Doctor stared at Esther's partner, who had donned a pair of sunglasses and was presumably enjoying himself on stage, despite his perpetual frown. The man in black noodled away on the guitar, nodding slowly in time with the beat.

"Can I buy you a drink?" Esther asked. "They do an excellent banana daiquiri here considering the general feel of the place. Not sure where the bananas came from."

"Can't stop, probably," said the Doctor. "I've got to head off before the sun goes down - Rose needs to be home for dinner. Her mum's doing a roast."

"How…quaint," said Esther, and the song finished. "A roast."

Her partner discarded his guitar and hopped off the stage. Wound his way through the crowd quickly, the people parting before him like the red sea. Where had the Doctor seen that move before?

Esther stepped back from the Doctor as he approached.

"Miss - Essie," said the man, and the Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"You're Scottish," the Doctor said, by way of greeting.

"She's Scottish too. You're Northern," the man in black replied. He looped an arm around Esther's shoulders, held her against him tightly - possessively. "You're a long way from home. What a coincidence, seeing you here."

"What a coincidence, you somehow knowing who I am, when I've never met you before in my life." The Doctor said, and lifted his chin, looked the man in black in the eye. "That said, I've got a complicated life. You could have met me and I might not know you yet."

"Something like that. And how do you know Esther?" the man in black asked.

" _Essie_ , please, all my friends call me Essie," said Esther, leaning her head against the man's shoulder. She looped her arm around his waist, gave the Doctor a tired look. "This is my old man." Then, to the man in black. "Remember that stranger I was telling you about? We met in a bar, way back when. Long time ago, galaxy far, far away. A planet in black and white."

"I see," said the man in black, clearly displeased. Or that could just have been his face.

"No, no you don't," Esther said, sweetly. Tiredly. "My dear, would you mind getting the stranger and I a drink? We need to catch up."

"I do mind, actually," the man said, sounding hilariously petulant for someone with such a weathered face. " _Essie_."

"Go," said Esther, and she pecked him on the cheek. Ruffled his hair. "I'll be good. You're the boss, after all." She tweaked his nose.

The man in black glared daggers at her. Esther met his gaze, set her jaw.

"Fine. One drink. Or you'll regret this."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes after the man headed towards the bar.

"He's good to you, Esther?" he asked. "Is he nice?"

"He tries, when he feels generous," said Esther casually. "Shouldn't you go talk to your friends, now they're here?"

"I - " the Doctor didn't want them near Esther's so-called friend. They'd come for a nice time, and a nice time they'd had. No need to ruin that now. "You can meet them, if you'd like. But - "

"You - Usually people don't let me meet their friends."

"Jack, and that's Rose," said the Doctor, pointing. Saw Esther squinting. "The blonde is Rose. And they're human, as you noted."

"Ah, yes, yes," said Esther. "Fascinating."

"Your drinks. You done having fun?" the man in black returned. He pressed a glass of brandy into Esther's hand. Handed the Doctor a whiskey. "Drink."

"You not a drinker, Mister?" the Doctor asked.

The man in black moved his head from side to side. "Next round." He moved closer to the Doctor. "She's mentioned you," the man in black added, his voice low. "I'm not a fan of her behaviour as of late."

"I'm being punished, I see," said Esther cheerfully. She sipped her brandy. "My dear - "

The Doctor breathed out. "Esther. Esther - "

"My _dear_ ," said Esther smoothly.

"Isn't this the…one, who - " the man in black began. "This is - this is... _him_."

Esther shook her head at the man. The Doctor balked.

"One more dance," the Doctor said quickly, as the band kicked into another number. "You and me, Esther. Come on."

Esther knocked back her drink. "Absolutely."

Both she and the Doctor handed their glasses to the man in black, who stammered. The Doctor took Esther's waist and guided her out to the dance floor, studied her face.

"When I met you, I thought, there's a dangerous woman."

"An accurate assumption," said Esther.

"And now you're here, dangerous as ever, with a dangerous man who appears to have much less of a fun side than you. What planet is he from? What do you know about him? When did you actually meet him?"

Esther raised an eyebrow. "No idea," she said. "I still don't know what planet you're from, stranger."

He spun Esther, dipped her. She leant against him, their faces close. Stood again. Esther took her chance to spin him out and brought him in again. Her eyes were shockingly blue.

"So where's he from?"

"Same planet as you, one must assume," said Esther. "You're both grumpy sods."

"I _sincerely_ doubt that. Three beings with no planet in the same room," said the Doctor. "Rare occurrence."

"A sad occurrence," said Esther. "Not uncommon now, after that war. I've learnt some things while we've been apart, stranger." She glanced over at her partner, who glowered, leaning against the wall. "Wish he'd go play his silly little guitar again, it always calms him down. Do you play guitar?"

"Can you imagine me with a guitar?" the Doctor asked.

They settled into a slow dance position, Esther's hands on his shoulders while the Doctor kept his hands about her waist.

"No, you seem more of a vocalist," said Esther slowly. "Lennon-y type of thing. Now, my old man over here," she imitated the Doctor's accent, "He told me. All about the time war, about the missing planets. Sure makes sense why Daleks destroyed my planet, and why the Daleks don't exist anymore. Because they don't, you were right. The Time Lords and Ladies must have taken them out. The - the Gallifreyans."

The Doctor paused. He hadn't heard anyone say the name of his species in a long time.

"How does your friend know all this?" he heard himself ask.

Esther shrugged as they continued to sway slowly. She ran her hands up his neck, cupped the nape. His skin tingled, suddenly chilled in the heat of the saloon.

"Said he…has some kind of mastery over that kind of knowledge. He has several degrees. Won't tell me from where, but he's ever so smart."

The Doctor squinted at the man, blood running cold, hearts pounding. No - it was impossible.

"He hasn't been away from his planet very long, if that helps," said Esther. "He's a good man, at heart." She emphasised the _t_ sound. "For better or for worse."

"Really."

The man looked over at the Doctor and Esther again. Narrowed his eyes, folded his arms. Esther cupped the Doctor's face, bringing his focus back onto her. Her thumb rested on his jaw, her fingers pressed against his neck.

"He doesn't like humans either," said Esther. "He probably just thinks you're a human. Hm. Actually."

"What's hm? What's actually?"

"His pulse feels like yours. Very fast, almost - twice as fast as mine, and I've got a rather average resting rate."

The Doctor felt chills running down his spine.

"What species is he?" he asked, mouth suddenly dry.

"A bit of this, a bit of that. I'm not sure, if I'm honest. Mostly humanoid, in the bits you can't see as well."

The song ended. Esther cut back through the crowd to the man in black. He nodded at the Doctor as he approached.

"Can we go?" the man in black asked.

"One more - " Esther began, as the Doctor stood next to her.

"Your turn to get drinks then, missy," the man in black said to Esther. "I mean - thanks."

Esther bobbed a mock curtsy and left, with designs on the bar.

Rose and Jack seemed to have left - they probably thought he was outside somewhere. Good. The Doctor hoped they'd stay out looking until he was finished up in here.

"Don't see many of your kind around here," said the man in black to the Doctor, voice low. "You're not human."

"And what is my kind?" asked the Doctor, suddenly feeling tense. "What is your point? Neither are you."

"Travellers. Humans have gotten nowhere near space by this point," he said. He met the Doctor's eyes. He had an intense gaze, which the Doctor tried to match. He presumed he succeeded. "A couple of people in the Asiatic region experiment with rockets at one point, but there's no movement on the space front until about the 1950s. Their Cold War. A piddly race of so-called super weapons that wouldn't have a chance against a real threat."

"You know your history. Got a _mastery_ of that, you have," said the Doctor.

The other man's face remained impassive. He had quite angry eyebrows, but that appeared to be their default setting.

The man in black finally shrugged. "I _also_ know you left bruises on her neck last time you saw her," he said. "Esther's."

The Doctor paused. "I'm sorry?"

The man in black shrugged. "You've got a bad impression of me, and if this is the first time I've met you, I have a terrible impression of you."

"I had my reasons, for that," said the Doctor. "What bruises? I didn't deliberately do it, if I did it at all."

"I'm sure."

"I _didn't_."

"I said I'm sure."

Esther returned, handed the man in black a whiskey, gave the Doctor a glass of the same. She leant against the man, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Do you have a name?" the Doctor asked.

The man looked at Esther. Esther held her tongue between her teeth. Grinned.

"Gerald," she said finally.

The man in black rolled his eyes, drank half his glass in one go.

"That's disgusting," he said, and handed it to Esther, who finished it.

"I'm sure," said the Doctor gruffly.

Esther nodded to something over his shoulder. The man in - Gerald - ducked his head, covered his mouth with his hand.

"Your humans are on the approach," Esther said. "Rose and Jacky boy. Darling, shall we stay and say hello?"

"No. No, we best be off then," said the man in black. "Best of luck to you, traveller."

"And to you two."

The man in black wound his arm around Esther's waist possessively, ushered her into the crowd and out of sight. Presumably there was a back exit. It wouldn't be the wild west without one.

Esther didn't look back at the Doctor. He wondered why he wished she had.

"Who was that you were talking to, Doctor?" Rose asked, her hair slightly frizzy from the heat outside. "They looked odd. Considering it's like 19th century America."

"Just an - old friend, I think," the Doctor said. "Perhaps."

"Nice looking couple," said Jack. "I assume they swallowed lemons though, neither of them looked particularly friendly."

"I suppose not," said the Doctor, then shook it off. "It's dusk, is it? Jack, what's the time?"

"That alien broke my timepiece, Doctor, don't you remember? That's how you lost your watch too."

"Ah," said the Doctor. "Well, near enough is good enough. Shall we?"

Rose grinned, bright as the sun. "We shall."

 

* * *

 

 

 

A hundred thousand lightyears away, there was a small bedroom on the Doctor's TARDIS.

"I'm not drunk," said the slightly swaying Twelfth Doctor to Missy, who grinned. "Was that deliberate? Did you take me there just to try and upset me? Because it didn't work."

"No, hon," said Missy.

"I remember you - meeting me. Very vaguely. The other time. How did you pull that off?"

"A drunk, overtired Doctor with PTSD, attempting to nurse a traumatised TARDIS walks into a bar. A slightly-concerned friend of his is seeking him out due to what basically amounts to a suicide note having come her way." Missy undid her collar, the first few buttons of her shirt. "I took pains to ensure you didn't see who I was. One of us has to care about the laws of time."

The Doctor sat unsteadily on the bed and stroked the patterned quilt cover.

"I do care about the laws of time. Your TARDIS has no taste in linen."

"Only when you're pretending to be a goody-two-shoes. God, that blonde one looked especially dim, even for you."

The Doctor studied his hands.

"I mean, what was she, twenty? What did you see in her? At least River had the - " Missy held her hands out in front of her chest. "And the little psychopath-lite thing going on. And the brown one, whatserface."

Here the Doctor did look at her. "You know her name is Martha."

"At the end of the day, old-style gumption." Missy yawned theatrically. Stood, crossed the room and sat back down at the dressing table. She began to unpin her hair. "She certainly got up to more than you, that year that never was."

The Doctor watched the way her hair came down in loose spirals with some interest. Perhaps he was a bit tipsy.

"I thought I was a younger you," he said finally, still watching her unpin her hair. "I mean, old me, thought I, current me, was an earlier version of you. That had somehow slipped through a crack in the timeline, at least briefly. The thought crossed my mind."

"And I was some little sidepiece that had gotten mixed up with the Master," said Missy. "Hm. Don't know if I should be insulted. I'm not one for sidepieces, never have been." She turned, appraised him; narrowed her eyes. "I could pull that look off."

"I could - I could pull that off," said the Doctor, gesturing at her. "All that purple."

"You have, on many an occasion," Missy quipped, and the Doctor had to laugh.

He kicked his boots off, unbuttoned the top of his own shirt, shrugged out of his coat.

"There is a lot of black there, Johnny Cash," Missy said, going back to her hair. "No wonder he got confused. Usually I'm in black."

The Doctor watched her carefully. Missy wiped her makeup off, met his gaze in the mirror. She walked back across the room, quiet in her stockinged feet and crawled up on the bed. She arranged herself between the Doctor's legs, leant against his chest with a sigh.

Yes, he was tipsy. The Doctor pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She took his hands.

"I like you better than him," said Missy. "We seem to be better matched. You're less - fragile. Less Northern."

"I find we tend to do that," the Doctor said.

"You have better taste. Clothes and humans, I mean. Handsome Jack, really," said Missy lazily, stretching out her legs, crossing them at the ankle. "Don't you want to go to bed?"

"We are in bed."

"You got me there."

"I'm right for a few minutes. Why did you talk to me in that bar? The first time, I mean." The Doctor stroked her hair back. "You did it today just to fluster me."

"Oh well, you know."

" _Missy_."

"Well. It sounds like a joke. A Polish man, a pope and a drunk, overtired PTSD-riddled Doctor, with a traumatised TARDIS walk into a bar. He's susceptible to all kinds of nonsense. A slightly-concerned friend of his is seeking him out due to having received a suicide note from his future self. And," Missy added. "I get randy when I drink."

"You actually _don't_ , though," says the Doctor. "Everyone thinks you do, but you don't, you get - familiar, for lack of a better term. Affectionate, if it's gin."

Missy examined his fingers, ran her thumbs over the callouses from his guitar. "I couldn't find _you_ , so I looked to him instead. I was worried. You weren't in any of your usual hundred or so haunts - concern was starting to set in." She flipped his hands and looked at his palms. The Doctor wove his fingers between hers, rested their intertwined hands on Missy's middle. Missy continued, "You know. Your so-called closest friend sends you his will. It's not pleasant, you bastard."

"I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I strangled you. Apparently," said the Doctor, feeling oddly sheepish. He brushed her hair over her shoulder, ran his nose up her neck, pressed his mouth below her ear. "I didn't mean to."

"You've hit me before."

"Yeah you've hit me too," said the Doctor. "Or you needed a punch to set you straight, or out of whatever evil scheme you set up. Not - when you're trying to help."

"I kissed you, that's why you tried to strangle me," said Missy. "I didn't mind. Kind of liked that."

"A door, that will remain closed this evening," said the Doctor, with a strange lilt to his voice. "God, I was such a mess."

Missy squeezed his hands.

"That said, you're doing much better these days, even if sometimes you don't think you are."

"How so?" the Doctor asked.

"You're just - " Missy tapped her toes together. "You're not a snivelling wreck, regardless of the presence of Gallifrey. You don't get all misty-eyed when I start making a mess - "

" - Killing people - "

"Yes, that too. You're on the mend. And a whole future collection of traumatising events are all set up for you, probably. I've got one planned in a few years, you're going to love it."

The Doctor looked helplessly into the middle distance for a moment. "….thank you?"

"There's going to be dinosaurs. But really. All you needed was the love of a good woman."

"Still looking for her," said the Doctor. "You'll do in the interim. _Esther_."

"Esther _Mists_. Seriously, how do you not get these?"

Rather than get into another argument about how he was better at maths puzzles than anagrams, the Doctor kissed the side of her neck again. Missy twisted, and their mouths briefly met. She shifted in his lap until she was straddling him, and the Doctor was vaguely surprised at the change in positions. He ran his hands up under her skirt, up to her garters, and tugged at them. Missy chuckled against his mouth, kissed him until he kissed her back, nipping at her lips. She delved her hands into his hair.

"I like your hair longer," she said.

"I must get it cut," the Doctor said.

They kept kissing, Missy shifting pleasantly in his lap. The Doctor started working his way down her neck to her collarbone. Missy stopped him, hands on his face. She made him look at her.

"Surely the good woman would be the interim," she said, licking her lips. "I'm the permanent fixture."

"Now, Mistress. Let's not dwell on horrid things," the Doctor replied.

"Oh, now you sound like me. I like it."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and feedback are always appreciated! Thanks for reading :)


End file.
